This post marks the one hundredth Tip of the Day. One year ago we began publishing one manageable tip each weekday to highlight resources available to language instructors teaching in a remote environment. As we headed into spring break in March, 2020, with the increasing spread of the pandemic, it became evident that we would eventually need to make use of online technology to conduct classes some time in the near future. The Language Center scheduled a workshop to orient language faculty to the newly acquired Zoom environment. We scheduled this workshop in the Jones computer classrooms several times during spring break to accommodate the schedules of the participants. The actual plunge into remote learning was so sudden that several instructors actually participated remotely. By the Monday following spring break the workshop itself was conducted remotely in Zoom.
That workshop could only be a general orientation to the Zoom environment. We covered how to set up a recurring Zoom meeting, how to use the chat function, how to see the list of participants, how to share your screen, and how to create breakout rooms. That was (we hoped) enough to get us started, but there were still a number of things that can be done in and through Zoom, as well as a number of ways to use existing technologies in new ways. We started the Tip of the Day blog to highlight these functions and to respond to questions that could be useful for a wide audience.
As of today, the site has been visited more than 7000 times. The past few months have seen on average over 1000 visits each month. A large concentration of tips have focused on Zoom. Some topics have been repeated as Zoom has evolved and brought about changes in the way things are done. We have also covered topics dealing with Canvas, Google Docs, Google Slides, Powerpoint, Jamboard, as well as general topics related to language teaching. You can access tips on any of these topics through the Categories list at the right. The Language Center has a team that now plans and contributes to the Tip site. You will see posts from Beth Kautz, Carter Griffith, Chee-ia Thao, Dan Soneson, Jonathan Prestrud, Stephanie Treat, and Diane Rackowski (emeritus). In addition to Language Center staff, language instructors have contributed tips from their experiences. Many thanks to Brian Barnett, Emily Groepper, Ginny Steinhagen, Kate Paesani, Lauren Goodspeed, Lydia Belateche and Zhen Zou for their useful ideas.
The most visited posts of all time are the following:
- Share a Video with Sound in Zoom
- Create your own Whiteboard in Google Slides
- Show or Hide Zoom Meeting Controls
- Creating a Background Image in Jamboard
- LC Elevator + Canvas = Easy Media Streaming for Your Students!
We invite you to explore and revisit the tips collected here. You can use the options in the sidebar to the left to search for tips: you can enter keywords in the search box, you can search for tips by topic, you can view lists of tips posted by month in the Archives section. And you can choose to subscribe to the blog to get an email notice as each tip is posted.
Remember:
The Language Center is here to foster the teaching and learning of languages. You can call on us to collaborate with you in designing course materials and activities, to connect instructors with one another to learn from each other, to share ideas and expertise in language teaching and learning, and in the application of technology to promote it. We are here to collaborate with you in setting up partnerships for language exchange through TandemPlus, in sharing courses with other Big Ten universities through CourseShare and with other campuses within the U of Minnesota system, to partner in research into language acquisition, proficiency development, and the application of technology, to consult with on curriculum development and course design, to provide professional development opportunities for all instructional staff in language departments, to provide and administer proficiency assessments for placement and to certify completion of the CLA language requirement, and to provide opportunities for students to learn languages not taught on our campus that are personally or academically meaningful to them.
The LC communicates regularly through ElsieTalk, our weekly newsletter, and through this Tip of the Day blog. As we begin to transition back into a “normal” in-person teaching environment, it is not hard to imagine that we will take with us some of the lessons learned in this year of remote teaching and learning. We may have discovered some aspects of technology-mediated activities that are more engaging and interactive than they can be in person. There may be some affordances that technology provides that you might prefer to continue accessing, even if meeting daily in person in the classroom. We aim to explore those affordances with you and to continue sharing what we learn both through ElsieTalk and in our next century of Tips.
Thanks for hanging with us!
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